אל מלא רחמים

The first offering from Alphabet of Wrongdoing.

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This is a traditional prayer sung at funerals and on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It wishes for ease and peace for the recently gone. To sing it on Yom Kippur is a way to reflect on our own mortality while remembering all of the unrepeatable prizes that we have known, admired, and lost.

Collectively, societally, we know what we have destroyed, but we don’t yet know what we will create. This is me hitting pause before we re-build -- consulting tradition, listening to my tradition, in case it carries any hints.

The aching, soaring melody strikes me as a cry that seems to disintegrate and evaporate as it is being sung.

This song is appropriate for people facing all gradations of grief or transition —

El Malei Rachamim is dedicated to All Our Departed - to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women; to Black Victims of Police Brutality; to victims of genocide, human trafficking, drug cartel violence, queer and trans violence, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; to my great-grandparents who perished in Poland, Lithuania, Russia, to all beings whose habitats or bodies are being destroyed by our carelessness; may their memories be blessings and may we find another way. z”l

“On this day, heat and warmth and light must come from deep within ourselves; no longer can we tear apart the world to make our fire.” Rabbi Richard N. Levy

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Credits:

This version is a melody inspired by Cantor Josef Rosenblatt, and is performed with Johnny Spence and Evan Cartwright, recorded by Leon Taheny, mixed by Steve Kaye, and Mastered by David Travers-Smith. Photo by Dawn Garcia, design by Brankica Harvey and Ken Deegan.